Floating radar platform might be based along O’ahu’s south shore. It appears that Kaua’i is going to take a back seat in the development of a new floating missile-tracking radar system that might be based at Pearl Harbor. Hawai’i is
Floating radar platform might be based along O’ahu’s south shore. It appears that Kaua’i is going to take a back seat in the development of a new floating missile-tracking radar system that might be based at Pearl Harbor.
Hawai’i is in the running for being home port to the Sea-Based Test X-Band (SBX) radar platform.
Some launches from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility would be part of the Hawai’i-based testing, according to information in the environmental paper, but no new facilities would need to be built for the launches.
If placed in Hawai’i, the platform would spend about nine months a year in the Pearl Harbor area, or three miles off of Barbers Point, the site of a former naval base, according to a report from Honolulu. The rest of the year the platform would be located in the North Pacific.
The floating platform is to be built out to the length of a frigate, or a 5,000 to 7,000 ton Navy vessel that’s larger than a destroy, but smaller than a cruiser.
Other sites in the running include two locations in Alaska, California, Washington state and the Marshall Islands.
The program is part of President George Bush’s new phase of the United States’ missile-defense program.
News of the program was released as part of an environmental assessment of the program. A meeting on the program was held in Honolulu last week.
Late last year Bush ordered the Department of Defense to have available the first stages of a Pacific area missile defense system that could blow up a ballistic missile in its first few minutes of flight. Some 20 interceptors located on land in Alaska and California would make up the system, along with 20 interceptors aboard on Aegis-system ships.
The USS Lake Erie is based at Pearl Harbor and would likely be one of the ships.
The environmental study is being done because debris from the destruction of test missiles would fall into the Pacific Ocean in uninhabited areas.
To test the system a missile would be launched and used as a target and intercepted by another missile, which would destroy the target if the mission succeeded. The floating radar system would be part of a combination of sensors based in space, on land and at sea that would be used to detect the missile.
The radar system would be used to find, target and destruct already-launched ballistic missiles to protect ships and land-based facilities. An environmental impact statement meeting was held in Honolulu on Thursday. No related meetings are planned for Kaua’i.
An environmental assessment of proposed mobile, truck-mounted THADD missile launches on Kaua’i being undertaken by the Army found no significant environmental impact. The THADD missiles would protect U.S. ground forces under attack by “theater,” or short and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Up to 50 launches of the THADD system are being planned to being in 2005 at PMRF.
